Gary Hamel: The Future of ManagementJustifiably cited by an Amazon editorial panel as one of the top 10 business books of 2007 (along with our own "Firms of Endearment." Hamel's book presents an insightful perspective on the corporation of the future. (*****)

Gene D. Cohen: The Mature MindDestroys the fable that older minds are disadvantaged minds and gives the marketing community a lot to think about when it comes to creating communications for second half markets. (*****)

Joel Garreau: Radical EvolutionOne of the best ways to prepare for a future of previously almost unimaginable advancements in human abilities is by reading this book. This is not speculation. It’s already happening. You need this book to figure how you fit into the picture. (*****)

The Empty CradleA must, must read if you want a glimpse of economic conditions that marketers -- both local and global -- will have to deal with in the not-too-distant future. (*****)

32 posts categorized "Economic Trends"

December 08, 2010

The list of industries radically transformed and even destroyed by disruptive technology continues to grow. Remember the newspaper business before Craigslist stemmed the flow of classified advertising revenues. And think about the billions that Skype has drained out of the telephone business. Then Apple’s iPod came along to destroy the retail music industry as we had known it for decades.

Now, another industry appears to be teetering on the edge of going the way of the dinosaur.

Advertising is on the cusp of its first creative revolution since the 1960s. But the ad industry might get left behind.

Is advertising on the cusp of a creative revolutio0on or is the business in any recognizable form simply headed for extinction? Indeed, digital technologies seem already to be having an effect on traditional business models in advertising equivalent to that of the meteor 65 million years ago whose impact wiped out dinosaurs.

An extreme view? Just remember the newspaper, telephone and retail music industry as they were not much more than a decade ago. What are your thoughts?

August 31, 2010

Quick: Name the five most famous books written by women on
the subject of management. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Bzzzzz. You lost out. Sorry.

Let’s try an easier question. Aside from Marrisa Mayer,
Ursula Burns, and Carol Bartz (to take out the easy ones) name five leading
women in tech. Tick. Tick. Tick. Oh, forget
it.

Where are all the women in this age of gender diversity in
the workplace, especially in tech?

Women supposedly account for more new businesses than men do.
According to the Kaufman Foundation which studies such matters, between 1997
and 2002 U.S. women-owned firms grew in number by 19.8 percent, compared with a
10.3 percent growth rate firms overall.

During the same period, however, women-owned firms recorded
lower survival numbers, as well as lower numbers for size, growth, earnings and
profits. The data suggest that women-owned firms are smaller and less
growth-oriented than men-owned firms.

What’s behind these disappointing numbers?

First, let me answer why I’m writing about gender and the
workplace. I started looking at the topic in connection with a new book I’m
doing. It’s hard to find women’s names that resonate in the business community like
those of Peter Drucker, Gary Hamel, Tom Peters, Michael, Porter, Jim Collins,
John Kotter, and Warren Bennis and so on and so on.

Then, a Fast Company article appeared in my email today on “The
Most Influential Women in Technology.” The number of influential women in tech
is shockingly small. Women as a founder or co-founder account for less than 10 percent
of all tech startups.

I’ve read that women have greater challenges getting credit,
that they still must learn to play by rules laid down by men, that they have to
face social stigmas associated with women who abandon familyfor career, and other reasons why fewer women
make it really big in the business world.

Alicia Robb, Kauffman Foundation senior research fellow said,
"The interesting thing about women entrepreneurs is that many of them may
be purposely starting businesses as a lifestyle choice. The number of
women-owned businesses growing faster may reflect that women are going into
business as a viable way to move out of the traditional employment market and
gain flexibility. It's hard to know if those kinds of businesses are where they
want to be or if they would like to grow faster."

In other words it is not fair to women (or men, for that
matter) to compare them on equal terms. Women often start businesses for
different reasons than men do. And probably by virtue of lower testosterone levels
they generally pursue business less competitively.

Do we see women who are as competitive as any man? Of course
– but not as often because women are indeed different. Their brains work
differently and they have characteristic values that weigh in heavier in their
decisions than they do in men’s decisions. For example, research shows that
women tend to be more collaboratively-minded than men are. Men are more likely
to make a go of it on their own.

One thing I’m seeing
is that while women’s influence in tech may be what some would call appallingly
low, women’s influence on the business ethos in general is growing and men’s is
ebbing. Perhaps from the standpoint of what’s good for society, maybe women’s
influence on corporate behavior is more important than on corporate growth. I’ll
get into more detail in my next post on this topic because it affects every
aspect of business from employee relations and product design to marketing and
customer servicing.

July 21, 2010

I suggest to readers of my new book in progress Brave New Worldview that they,” think
about how you would have responded in 1990 if someone told you that in just 20
years amateur websites would have put many newspapers out of business;
cells phones would have far more bandwidth than your 1990 PC; that we'd be
watching 60" flat screen TVs light enough for one person to carry; that 25
billion pages of information could be searched in less than a quarter of a
second; and that getting lost would be a thing of the past thanks to your cell
phone’s connection to a completely free network ofglobal navigation satellites.”

I was making the point that the scale and pace of change
is getting beyond our ability to predict it. To appreciate that point from a media
and marketing perspective and over an even shorter time horizon, think about
these several items: how many people in 2000 had heard of Google, which was incorporated
out of a garage in Pala Alto just 18 months earlier?Facebook, now the most accessed site on the
planet did not exist until 2004, the year of Googol’s IPO. YouTube was still a
year from going online; movies and television 2000 on cell phones were just
around the corner.

Had much of what is in our lives today, which we’re
already taking for granted, been predicted to be here in fewer than 10 years,
many would have said, “You’re talking about the future, buddy.” Well, the
future has arrived. It’s here now, at your doorstep.

My question is, “Are you ready for new developments in
media and marketing that will take place over the next 10 years – or less? “

If you’re in some aspect of media and marketing and do
not have at least one competent person in your department (or small company) thinking about the future between now and the next five
years you could already be headed for trouble.

These thoughts were inspired by an article in the
current Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek, “Twitter,
Twitter, Little Stars.” It is a good indicator of where marketing is going in
its fickle relationships with media. Will the CMO (whose average time in office is now less than two years) be replaced by a Chief Social Networks Officer?

It’s anyone’s guess as to what media
and marketing will look like fire years from now as well as the jobs within the.The only way to play it safe
is to save enough time and attention out of your day to look toward the horizon
and try to see what’s coming over it even if you don’t know what it is at first
or how it will affect you and your organization. Perhaps a monthly – or better,
a bimonthly staff meeting over the treat of a catered lunch would give you the
opportunity of tapping the wisdom of the crowd in your department or small
organization to get a better idea of the future that is now fast approaching
your doorstep.

August 24, 2009

I bet not many of my readers can't wait till
the next book on economics comes out. Well, rarely having any interest myself
in such books, Ihave been quite
surprised by the extent to which two recent books from high priests of the
dismal science held my attention.

The first book I read was Dan Ariely’s
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. Ariely is a
pioneer thinker in the new branch of economics called “behavioral economics.”
Amazingly, over 235 years after Adam Smith famously claimed that the movement
of markets was caused by an “invisible hand” that reflected people’s rational
decisions taken on their own behalf, mainstream economics mainstream economists
are beginning to suspect that the “rational” part of people’s decisions has
been overplayed.

Dan Kenneth Arrow, Nobel Prize laureate in
economics commented, “"Dan Ariely's ingenious experiments explore deeply
how our economic behavior is influenced by irrational forces and social norms.
In a charmingly informal style that makes it accessible to a wide audience,
Predictably Irrational provides a standing criticism to the explanatory power
of rational egotistic choice."

I next read George Akerlof and Robert
Shiller’s Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It
Matters for Global Capitalism. Akerlof is another Nobel laureate in economics.
Shiller is a prominent Yale economist and the Shiller of the widely followed
Case-Shiller Home Price Index. Akerlof and Shiller honor John Maynard Keynes,
one of the most influential economists in modern times whose 1936 magnum opus,
General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, by titling their book after
Keynes term to signify irrational behavior in the marketplace, “animal
spirits.”

I was fascinated to learn that when
mainstream economists took to Keynesian economics they conveniently left out
Keynes’ thinking about how rational behavior was not as prominent in the
marketplace as classical economics held. It seems that mainstream economists
have a left brain view of the world, one in which everything that happens
ultimately has a predictable cause. The idea that some things just happen is an
anathema to left brain constructs of reality.

But the esteemed John Maynard Keynes knew
that the Newtonian-inspired idea that left brain based reason underlies the
comings and goings of markets was wrong-minded in its exclusivity. In the first
place, were all human behavior predictable the case would be closed on the
ancient quandary of philosophers about whether or not free will exists. The
notion that determinism shapes human, hence market behavior forecloses the
possibility of free will.

Sadly, the denizens of the marketing
profession have by and large had the same mechanistic view of markets. Rather
than become in-depth students of human behavior, most marketers have depended
on anecdotal and statistical renderings of behavior. To the extent that
behavioral science has been part of marketing tradition, it has been pretty
much focused on social psychology, a field that is not very concerned with
individual behavior independent of social contexts.

But a new dawn appears on the horizon – in
marketing as well as in economics. As behavioral economics is beginning to chip
away at flawed assumptions about markets from an economic perspective,
behavioral marketing is doing the same from a marketing perspective. At long
last there is growing recognition among marketers that human behavior cannot be
totally reduced to numbers.

Animal Spirits does a superb job of
undercutting economists traditional obeisance to numbers – to the reduction of
market forces including human behavior to mere statistical constructs. For that
reason, I heartily recommend the book (as well as Ariely’s Predictably Irrational)
to marketers as well as to all others involved in any aspect of business. Few
of us will not be able to read Predictably Irrational without seeing ourselves
in some of the experiments Ariely has conducted that show how de minimus the
role of rational behavior is in our marketplace behavior.

And aside from supporting Ariely’s thesis,
Animal Spirits tells why, as nothing else I’ve read does, the Financial Crash
of 2008 occurred. Contrary to the view of many it was not due so much to
regulatory failures and greed in corporate executive suites as to the failure
of analysts and other investment p

Do yourself a very large favor and get both
of these books. You'll gain a better understanding of why economists and
markets get it wrong so often.

October 20, 2008

Nature endowed our frontal lobes with the ability to look
beyond the present moment into time ahead. However the farther cognitively removed
we are from the present, the more likely our predictions about the future will
prove wrong. This is especially true when some disruptive event explodes in our
midst to nullify our customary way of seeing things. The printing press did this over five
centuries ago. The Internet did this less than two decades ago.

The Internet has altered in measurable ways virtually every
aspect of human life. It has radically changed how business operates. Even the
most astute science fiction writer could not have anticipated the magnitude of
the Internet on business. For instance
who in 1990 would have predicted the emergence of a new business model in which
company’s most important consumer products are free – such as they are on craigslist.com,
Google and an assortment of social media sites.

Ponder how Amazon’s has transformed the book selling business.
Think about Wikipedia’s radical
disruption of the encyclopedia business. Overnight, a $1,400 set of Encyclopedia
Britannica lost virtually all its value to most people. Free Wikipedia was not
only a hundred times larger, but according to a study by the British journal Nature, just about as accurate.

Customers talking to each other reveal the pros and cons of
products and companies on a daily basis.People now trade stocks on line at a fraction of the cost in
pre-Internet times. Homebuyers go around the close-knit,
incestuous Realtor ® community in search for new homes.Thanks to Skype and other voice over Internet
protocols, you can talk to anyone, anywhere in the world without a long
distance charge.

The list of technological, economic, social and cultural disruptions
in our lives due to the Internet since 1990 or so is astonishingly long. But,
the Internet is only one source of life-changing, world-changing disruptive
forces that are radically changing the human experience in virtually every way conceivable.

An aging population is radically changing the dynamics of
supply and demand. With most adults now over
45, big houses, full closets and years of materialistic fulfillment are resulting
in falling per capita spending in dozens of categories. Exacerbating this trend is the shrinking number
of people under 45 in developed nations around the world – the result of over
35 years of too few births annually to replace the population.

Advancements in science in portend enormous disruptions –
many for the betterment of the human condition. For example, genomic and
medical research has caused scientists to cautiously predict the end of
diabetes, many cancers (if not all) and a long list of inherited diseases like
Huntington’s.

Even the dismal science is seeing benign disruptive developments.
Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
for his work in using microloans to bail millions of families out of abject
poverty has plans that he claims will eliminate poverty worldwide by 2025 –
just 13 years from now. This from a man thought by traditional bankers to be more
than a bit unrealistic when he proposed to them using microloans to life people
out of poverty. Microlending for this purpose has now become a sizeable
industry.

Think back 14 years to 1994 and reflect on all of the unpredicted
breakthroughs that have occurred in field after field. The Internet browser, Netscape appeared in
1994. When asked his opinion of its importance, Bill Gates replied, “It’s a
trivial thing.” Yet, the browser transformed
the world in ways that no other communications artifact ever has.

Also in 1994, teams at the University of Innsbruck and the
US National Institute of Standards and Technology executed the first successful
teleportation task. Granted, their accomplishment was far from the impressive
actions of Scottie’s teleportation device aboard the Starship Enterprise. But it
still was enough even at the quantum scale to confirm its possibility (though I
wouldn’t recommending shorting airline stocks just yet.

And here’s another Starship Enterprise technology just
beginning to emerge: remember the replicator that Enterprise crew members used
to make ham and cheese sandwiches from assorted atoms and molecules? A
primitive semblance of the enterprise’s replicator has reached the marketplace in
the past decade – only it’s called a “3-d fax machine.” It is yet to reproduce
the organic stuff in a ham and cheese sandwich, but

We are in a period of bifurcation – a “crossroads between
death and transformation,” as Margaret Wheatley says, when a system is at
maximum instability. The Soviet Union entered a state of bifurcation in 1985,
fated to reach maximum instability in 1990 and collapse into separate states in
1991. Many in the U.S. smirked and proclaimed absolute victory over socialism.
Yet today, the U.S. economic system has been massively disrupted by actions of
the most doctrinaire conservative administration in U.S. history. Several weeks
ago it blinked during a moment of “maximum instability” and nationalized much
of America’s leading financial organizations.

Living through times
like these is a scary, and for many, a deeply painful experience. In such
moments it is hard to see far beyond the present. Yet, I am full of optimism
about the future. I feel throughout my entire being the winds of change that are
blowing away the detritus of worn-out ideas and ways of managing our
governments, our companies and indeed our own lives.Once more, as Tom Stoppard reminds us in his
play Arcadia, “The future is
disorder. A door like this has opened up five or six times since we got up on
our hind legs. It is the best possible
time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you k new is wrong.”

The political, economic, cultural storms we are living
through are precedent to the most extraordinary age of comfort and plenty in
the history of humankind. Deconstruction has always preceded reconstruction in
the long journey of human progress from the days of the first hand-wrought
tools.

September 23, 2008

“As the percentage of the older population increases, and
especially as young adults decline in absolute numbers, fewer, not more, dollars will flow into the economy.

“For the first time since the end of World War II,
residential real estate will begin to depreciate on a national basis – a phenomenon
which might come to be called the Great
Real Estate Recession. (A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research
projects a 47 percent decline in real dollars.)

“These predictions about the future of the U.S. economy apply
to the economies of all developed nations.”

I made those predictions 20
years ago in my book, Serving the Ageless
Market. Today, as we survey the carnage along Wall Street, there is no lack
of explanations offered by politicians, economists, academicians and pundits.
But thus far, I’ve not seen a single reference to the root cause – to the Big
Bang trigger of the most calamitous financial meltdown since the Great
Depression.

First, I don’t deny that greed,
wanton deregulation, weird financial products that few understand, irrational exuberance
and a flood of easy money all contributed to the financial mess we’re in.
However, it was all predictable far longer ago than 1988, when I first
predicted that the U.S. and probably all developed nations were headed for a
cosmic scale economic meltdown.

The seeds of today’s economic travails
were planted in 1972 when the fertility rate fell below the level need to
replace the population. In 1964, the last year of the baby boom, the fertility
rate was 3.65 per woman of child-bearing age. In 1972 it was 2.01. Population
replacement requires a fertility rate of 2.1. Through 2007 – 35 years after the
U.S. has failed to have enough births to replace the population.

Negative growth fertility rates
have adversely impacted the auto, housing, furnishings and a long litany of
other product lines. And the effects of dropping below population replacement
rates is far from over, as Japan’s experience can testify to. Many seem to forget that the single biggest driver of economic growth is population growth. Increases in consumer populations have traditionally depended on on increases in the number of babies born.

On my first lecture tour of
Japan in 1990 I told my hosts that Japan was about to fall into a deep and
long-term economic contraction due to two factors: a negative growth fertility
rate and an aging population that was contributing to a falling rate of
consumer spending. At the time of that
lecture tour some U.S. economists were predicting that the Japanese economy would
surpass the U.S. economy by 2000. Of course that never happened. As I had
predicted to my Japanese hosts who politely cut off my discussions, Japan fell
into an economic contraction 18 months later that stripped over 50 percent of
the value from real estate throughout the country – in some cases, as much as
80%. Today, a 750 square foot condo in Tokyo is selling at about 42 percent of
its 1992 price.

When I share these thoughts with
people, almost inevitably I’m told not to worry – immigration will certainly
keep us from falling into the abyss of deflation that Japan fell into. However,
while immigration – legal and otherwise – may keep the U.S. from as deep and as
persistent and economic downturn as Japan has suffered, don’t count on
it. The rest of the developed world is facing
population shrinkage and aging populations.This will slow economic growth worldwide. Population contraction will not support the
kind of growth we’ve been accustomed to. Even China and India are experiencing economic deceleration. The post world-War II economic boom is over.

But as Tom Stoppard optimistically
tells us in his play, Arcadia, though “The future is disorder... a door like this has
opened up five or six times since we got up on our hind legs. It’s the best
possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is
wrong.”

In my next post I will share
some of my brighter thoughts about where we are heading. But in the meantime,
don’t expect any sharp turn-around in the economy anytime soon – not in 2009
and not in 2010 in my view. But, again, I believe there are reasons to not fall
into despair. I’ll explain why, next.

April 04, 2008

For more than 3,000 years, values
rooted in the masculine soul dominated the civilized world. Polio vaccine
discoverer Jonas Salk, who called those values ego values, took note of this in a paper he wrote shortly before
his death in 1995.

Ego values, which fuel the
competitive spirit in men, have been a driving force behind humankind’s
cultural and technological progress over the millennia. However, said Salk, the
future of humankind now depends more on cooperation than on competition. The
time has come in the name of human survival, he said, for a cultural shift
toward being values.

Ego Values

Dominant for 3,000 years; masculine

Being
Values

Beyond materialism; quality over
quantity; feminine or androgynous

Intellect

Intuition

Reason

Feeling

Objective

Subjective

Morality

Reality

Differences

Differentiation

Competition

Cooperation

Power

Influence

Win-Lose

Win-Win

In essence, Salk was calling for a
massive surge of ego transcendence. On
an individual basis, ego transcendence is the mark of those existing in an
advanced state of psychological maturity. In fact, one of the items on Carl
Jung’s Seven Tasks of Aging whose accomplishment leads to a regret-free,
peaceful and joyous old age was “letting go of the ego.”

Because people in the second half of
life are now the adult majority among the developed world’s one billion people,
Salk’s hoped for surge of ego transcendence is underway. Notwithstanding armed
conflicts around the world that flow from the muscular expression of ego
values, there is very clearly a global movement that is weakening the influence
of materialistic self-centeredness that defined advanced cultures of the 20th
century.

Paul Hawkins writes about the global
cultural shift toward others-centeredness in his recent book Blessed Unrest. In the business world
the idea of ego transcendence is being embraced on an ever broadening front
under the notion of the Three P’s – Profit, People and Planet.

It’s curious that Time magazine, in drawing up its list of
“10 ideas that are changing the world” missed altogether what is perhaps the
strongest idea of all – looking for and finding personal life satisfaction by
rising above the ego and joining with fellow beings to promote higher life
quality for everyone on the planet.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate (2006) Mohammad
Yunus, 69, is a towering example of that others-centered aspiration. For a
truly inspiring insight into the mind and heart of this Bangladeshian economics
professor, please visit a video presentation of the Charlie Rose segment in which
Mr. Rose interviewed Dr. Yunus.

Dr. Yunus believes that fully half
of the world’s population of abjectly poor people (less than $1 a day in
income) can be eliminated by 2015 – just seven years away, anf that not too
long after that abject poverty – like small pox – can be totally eradicated
from the earth.

The ranks of those who agree with
Dr. Yunus is growing. Twenty years ago he would have been seen as a crank. But
now, the success of his microlending program which already has lifted millions
of families above abject poverty, has turned him from eccentric crank into a
sage of uncommon wisdom.

And Dr.Yunus’s efforts are just
one example of how a planet-wide surge of ego transcendence is transforming the
human experience, and indeed, possibly us all from apocalyptic disasters.

Next: A sampling of the marketing implications of ego transcendence
in the consumer population..

March 24, 2008

The Socialization of Business: The Biggest Change in Capitalism Since Adam Smith

In my last post I promised you a
list of 10 ideas that I believe are doing more to change the world than the 10
ideas Time listed in its March 24
edition. You may recall my intention to draw my list from the same categories Time used. However, once I went to work
on my own list I discovered that sticking with Time’s categories would be to ignore some of the most influential ideas
of our times.

Take business, for example. Time ignored that category despite the
role of business in society undergoing the deepest conceptual change since Adam
Smith laid down the foundations of capitalism in Wealth of Nations in 1776.

Like a person who has evolved from
the self-centeredness of youthhood toward the others-centeredness of
self-actualization, capitalistic enterprises are projecting more advanced
states of socialization than ever before seen on a broad front. Legions of
companies have taken up purposes of social significance far beyond service to
their bottom lines. Many have adopted a multiple stakeholder relationship (MSR)
business model.

Management in MSR companies
intentionally address needs of other stakeholders from customers and employees
to suppliers and society. Economist Muhammad Yunus, who won the 2006 Nobel
Peace Prize for his work in eradicating poverty, calls this “conscious
capitalism.”

Ever since British Parliament
passed the Joint Stock Companies Act of 1844 corporations have been relieved of
any social purpose. As Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman famously said,
“(T)here is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its
resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.”

Friedman regarded executives who
operated their companies with a sense of social purpose as being un-American:

The businessmen (who) believe … that business is not
concerned "merely" with profit but also with promoting desirable
"social" ends, has a "social conscience" and takes
seriously its responsibilities for providing em­ployment, eliminating
discrimination, avoid­ing pollution are preach­ing pure and unadulterated
socialism. (They are) are unwitting pup­pets of the intellectual forces that
have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.

Ever since Friedman wrote those
words for a 1970 New York Magazine article,
academicians, business leaders, social commentators and others have waged
vigorous debates about the role of business enterprises in society. But as
songster Bob Dylan sings, “The times they are a-changin’.” Those who believe
that business’s only social responsibility is lawfully making profits are an
endangered species.

As the size and power of
companies have grown, so also has the “social conscience” of business. Some
would counter that claim by calling attention to the recent Enrons, Tycos and
WorldComs scandals. However, while commanding fewer and smaller headlines, companies
in growing numbers have unabashedly incorporated a resolve to help create a
better world into their missions.

Many are the companies that are
taking on tasks traditionally considered the job of government and NGOs. For
example Starbucks uses its considerable purchasing power to improve the life quality
of people in coffee growing countries. It offers growers multi-year fixed
prices regardless of fluctuations in market price. In exchange, growers must plow
some of their profits back into educational, housing, healthcare and other
social needs of their communities.

For the first time in history,
companies economically rival most nations on earth. Of the world’s 100 largest
economic entities, 43 are business enterprises. Their annual revenues are
greater than the GDP of all but 57 nations. Within the next decade they will
become the majority.

Foes of globalization see the
growing power of companies as a dire threat that warrants government
intervention. However, not many nations are likely to take actions that curb the
growing power of business. They cannot afford to.

After a century of socialistic
behavior, developed nations are finding it increasingly difficult to pay the
bills. They are experiencing the double whammy of population shrinkage, which
leads to falling tax revenues, and unprecedented growth in elderly populations,
which increases the per capita costs of entitlements.

In the past, governments
depended on taxes to cover costs associated with fulfilling their social
agendas. Often, raising taxes is no longer politically or economically
defensible. So, governments must look elsewhere for resources to meet public
needs. One rapidly growing trend is selling public infrastructures from roads
and bridges to ports and prisons to private enterprises on a revenue-sharing basis.

Many companies have moved on
their own to address major social problems. GE’s much hailed ecoimagination
initiative is one prominent example. Like a growing number other companies, GE
sees profitable opportunities in taking actions that benefit the environment.
Other social issues commanding the attention of globally operating companies include
exploitation of workers in poorer nations.

One of the most impressive
examples of business moving into traditional government territory to solve a
major social problem is seen in the operation of the Grameen Bank.

Bangladeshian economist Muhammad
Yunus invented the microlending industry to help the poor escape poverty. With
a loan of as little as $25 to buy materials for handicrafts that she can sell
in the open market, a depressingly poor woman can take herself and her family
out of abject poverty.

Philanthropic activity is
growing at an unprecedented rate. Some of it flows from corporately sponsored
foundations. Other philanthropy is supported by individuals who have amassed
great fortunes from business operations. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
is a notable example of the latter. The Gates Foundation is dedicated to
ridding the world of malaria. It has also tackled illiteracy in poor nations
around the world. The Gates Foundation has partnered with a number of public
school systems in the U.S.to improve student performance by applying principles of sound business
management to the administration of public education.

In the 20th century,
the welfare of societies and their members was largely left to government. In
the 21st century, business enterprise is playing an ever larger role
in addressing the social agenda of nations around the world. Surely, the
socialization of business is one of the most powerful ideas now shaping the
world. Yet the March 24 edition of Time gave
it no attention in its cover story, “10 Ideas that are changing the world.”

March 19, 2008

Do you ever wonder how people come up with numbered lists
like the Ten Sexiest Sons of silicon Valley orFive Ways to Get Even with Your _ _ _ hole
Boss. This week’s Time cover story is
about 10 ideas that are changing the world. I wonder how Time''s editors came up with that list. To save you the newsstand price of $4.95,
here are the 10 ideas that Time avers are changing the world:

#1 Common Wealth:
how we must work together globally to avoid the dinosaurs’ fate.

#2 The End of
Customer Service: Sales clerks are being replaced by technology.

#3 The Post-Movie Star
Era: Movie success will depend on stories not famous faces.

#4 Reverse Radicalism:
Talking to retired terrorists will show us how to end terrorism.

#5 Kitchen Chemistry:
Home cooking will morph from art to science.

#6 Geoengineering: Zillions
of mirrors in space could end global warming.

#7 Synthetic
Authenticity: People like fake if it feels, looks, smells, sounds and
tastes real.

#8 The New Austerity:
People are going to start living within their means.

#9 Mandatory Health:
Companies are going to make employees live healthy lives.

#10 Re-Judaizing
Jesus: Jesus was a Jew after all. Get used to it!

There. I’ve not only saved you
$4.95 and possibly some sales tax, but the 20 – 30 minutes you would have Except
for #1 (which is not revelatory) and #6 (which could just be science fiction) Time’s list of world-changing ideas are
about as intellectually worthy as contemplating the downward flow of a bubble
of dew.

Time’s writers
embellish the 10 articles with audacious hyperbole as though terms of
exaggeration can impart gravitas that is otherwise missing. For example, in
pontificating about #7, Time writer
John Cloud describes my good friend Joe Pine (The Experience Economy and more recently Authenticity) and his partner Jim Gilmore as “legendary business
consultants.” I should think that Joe,
who seems always to be rolling a toothpick around in his mouth, would feel a
little embarrassed by that characterization, especially because it appears in
an article that cites his book Authenticity.
I know Joe. He’s much more real than
legendary.

Of what importance is it that home cooks are going to
start thinking of preparing supper as a scientific act? In the first place, I
am hard pressed to believe that prediction.

Time’s audacious
claim to be offering to readers “10 ideas that are changing the world” stands
as a profoundly shallow reading of the world of today. Less than useless, the articles are not even mildly engaging.

So, even as I have yet
to finish my series of occasional posts to “Surviving and Thriving in Challenging
Times,” I am going to start a new series: “10 Ideas That
Are Changing the World.” I will use many of the 10 categories in Time’scover piece to show that Time’s writers missed the really big ideas
in those categories that are changing the world -- and having direct relevance to us all.

February 18, 2008

In the last post, I promised that my nextt post would talk about companies that have productively connected with the contemporary zeitgeist. However, I came across an
Associated Press article that I wanted to share with my readers because it does a good
job of describing the zeitgeist from
an economic perspective. (I’ll keep my promise in the next post barring some
other development that sets it back once more.)

Even when experts were declaring the economy healthy, many
Americans voiced a vague, but persistent dissatisfaction. True, jobs were relatively
plentiful over the last few years. It was easy to borrow and very cheap. The
sharp rise in the value of homes and plentiful credit cards encouraged a nation
of consumers to get out and buy. But to many people, something didn't feel
right, even if they couldn't quite explain why.

Far be it from me to wantonly depress this
blog's devoted readers, but as each week has passed since the beginning of 2008,
the volume of warnings about a sustained economic downturn has progressively
grown. We can deny the seriousness of this downturn in a quest for insulation from worry. Or we can bite
our lip, dig in and earnestly try to learn all we can about what is shaping the
economic future so that whatever happens, we are better able to cope.

Housing is at the center of the
storm that is battering that economy. Housing has traditionally led the nation into
economic downturns and this time it is no different. What is different this
time, however, is that demand will not materially increase during the current
economic downturn as it has always been the case in past downturns. The reason
is that the age cohort that accounts for most home buying (30 -44-year-olds) is
shrinking in size. In other words, don't believe those who say that we're in just another cyclical downswing, and that soon housing prices will resume an upward spiraling that makes housing one of the best investments you can make.

For most people, nothing
outside of losing a job and not finding a comparable replacement does more to
depress their confidence in the economic future than to see the value of
their homes steadily falling. For many people, home appreciation is their ticket to being able to afford retirement. If, as a recent Business Week story said was possible - that home prices could fall another 25% before bottoming out - millions of aging boomers will not be able to afford retirement. That will have a major influence on the zeitgeist.

A
long period of economic stagnation will inevitably turn the mind of the
market toward a fiscally more conservative bent. The
character of consumers’ aspirations and obviously their lifestyles will undergo significant change.

To keep in lockstep with consumers,
companies will have to change how they market -in some cases in profound ways. This
will be the case not only in marketing to people in circumstances that force them to cut back on spending, but in marketing to more affluent consumers
as well because nearly everyone's behavior is influenced by the zeitgeist.

Companies traditionally spend huge sums trying to assess the mind of the market as it manifests itself in the present. Now, however, they need to be assessing the likely disposition of the mind of the market three, four, five six or more years into the future. Why? Because we're not likely not see the mind of the market bounce back to its disposition when talk around then office water cooler often consisted of people bragging about how much their homes had increased in value over the past several months.

Blogs with a Global Perspective On Marketing

Anita Campbell's Small Business TrendsAnita's blog is a treasure trove of useful information, especially for small businesses who must depend on external sources to identify what is important to them.

Ben McConnell and Jackie HubaHigh priests of customer evangelism, the foundation of viral marketing, Ben and Jackie work creatively from the pulpit of the Church of the Customer to tech companies how to recruit consumers into their marketing efforts.

Brent Green's BoomersBrent’s blog amplifies marketing principles and practices in his book “Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers.” Commentary ranges from rants about the marketing clueless to exaltation of companies and organizations successfully introducing new Boomer marketing initiatives.

Jean-Paul Treguer's SenioragencyJean-Paul brings a Continental perspective to the art of marketing to people in the second half of life. This entry links directly to the English edition. The French edition is at http://www.jean-paul-treguer.com/. In both editions, lots of down to earth insights and advice.

Saisir l'état d'esprit des 40+Sylvain Desfosses's dedicated efforts to promote a better understanding of the general state of mind of 40+ segment and the strategic implications in marketing and management. In French (no English subtitles!).

MarcomBlogMarcomBlog is a collaborative effort between eight terrific public relations and marketing professionals and students in Auburn University's Department of Communication and Journalism to involve students in conversations with practitioners from around the world.

Mark Willaman's SeniorCareMarketerMark discusses the 'business of aging' with a focus on Internet marketing. In particular, he writes about how companies who market products and services relating to the aging population can increase their online visibility, web site traffic and leads.

Resonance Partnership Blog Marianne Richmond offers insight into connecting marketing and customer experience within the paradoxes of a digital world… with an eye towards neuroscience and behavior theory.

Web Market CentralTom Pick of WebMarketCentral.com shares his advice, commentary, observations, and wisdom on all aspects of online marketing.

Yvonne DiVita's Lipsticking BlogLip-sticking teaches small and medium-sized businesses how to market to women online. Speaking from the perspective of Jane – representative of the women's market – we offer qualified advice, insight, and research on women and the Internet.

Blogs on Sales Theory and Practice

S. Anthony Iannarino - The Sales BlogAnthony's common sense commentary is a treasure trove of insight into sales methods. tools, and theory enriched by an uncommon addiction to reading about everything. (Renaissance personalities make great salespeople and marketers.)